


More Than Occasional

by htbthomas



Category: Powerless (TV 2017)
Genre: Denial of Feelings, Episode: s01e11 Win Luthor Draw, F/F, First Kiss, Getting Together, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Humor, Misses Clause Challenge, Superpowers, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-11 21:19:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16860487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htbthomas/pseuds/htbthomas
Summary: Jackie told everyone she'd only use her new superpowers occasionally. Problem is, she keeps wanting to use them when Emily is involved.





	More Than Occasional

**Author's Note:**

  * For [millepertuis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/millepertuis/gifts).



> Post-episode for "Win, Luthor, Draw" - which is in the unaired set of episodes. If you didn't catch it streaming, the main takeaway for this fic is that Ron and Teddy accidentally give Jackie speedster powers.
> 
> Thanks to driedflowers for the beta!

The thing about all those superhero origin stories that they never really talk about? Having powers is one of those things that you just get used to. Honestly, most days Jackie forgets she has superspeed, or really, that it wasn't there all along. Of course, if she'd had superpowers all along, she would have never become the assistant to the world's most self-serving and ineffectual boss. But now that she's here? Eh, might as well stay while she's working on her MBA. It pays the bills and she doesn't have to deal with the annoyance of yet another battle against a poorly-named rogues gallery, like the real Flash does. Really, "Captain Cold"? Please.

And who knows what stupid thing the press would call her if she started going around saving people for a living.

She hears an explosion from the lab, and people in the cubicles jump and turn to look, but Jackie just sighs and opens her email. Teddy and Ron are at it again, trying to recreate how she got her powers. She refused to tell them—it was bad enough that they knew they were responsible at all. She should have never said that. Because for the first week after she saved them from being turned into no-calorie cheese at LexCorp, they asked her about fifty times a day. Then she supersped them both into their underwear (ew ew ew) during their coffee break and they stopped (so it was worth it).

There's another _zzzt!_ of electricity, which makes the lights and computer screens flicker. It's just enough to cut out the wifi. A couple of people groan throughout the office and there's a shout from Van's office. "No! I almost swept all my mines!"

"Sorry, everybody!" Teddy says a couple seconds later. The grumbles increase.

"Donuts in the break room?" Ron says, his voice rising in suggestion. The grumbles soften somewhat. "Innnnnnnnnnnnnn..." He holds out the word so long that she has to turn and look. He jerks his head out the windows as if to say, 'You know, you could go get donuts for everyone in 0.3 nanoseconds, I'd totally owe you one.'

She hates that she can read everyone in this office so well. It makes her a fantastic executive assistant, but it's annoying as hell sometimes. She just frowns at him so hard that eye lasers could have decimated him on the spot. Why wasn't that one of the powers she got?

"...nnnnnn thirty minutes?" He laughs nervously.

A resigned sigh passes through her coworkers and then everyone's back to work. Ron is on his phone with PostMates and Teddy is cleaning up some sort of orange goop from the walls. Dummies.

Her phone chirps a notification. _Ruby, soccer, 4pm_. That's ten minutes from now, and Van's still in the middle of his afternoon procrastination cycle. In 20 minutes he'll ask for his afternoon iguana to be delivered, or some such nonsense. Jackie shakes her head. For a man who only cares about climbing the corporate ladder, he's pretty clueless when it comes to knowing how to do it.

"You know," Emily says from over her shoulder. "I could keep an eye out for you."

Jackie doesn't startle. Even without her superspeed, she's always seen things coming from miles away. With a tiny, but purposely audible sigh, she says flatly, "Eye out for what."

"For Van. So you can do whatever thing you have to do. That you got a notification for and looked so sad about." She comes around to lean her elbows on the ledge of Jackie's desk, smiling that annoyingly chipper smile. "I don't mind. Really. Things are winding down around here anyway."

Jackie frowns. Is Emily stalking her, or was it just a coincidence that she was passing by? "So you'll like, shine the 'Jack'-signal?" she drawls. Actually, not a bad idea. "And I'll just zip back here in time?"

Emily shrugs. "Or... I could just text you?"

"Yeah, that could work."

She's gone and sitting in the bleachers with a bag of popcorn before the papers settle on her desk back at Wayne Security. Ruby sees her and waves, jumping up and down a little with excitement. Jackie tosses a handful of popcorn in her mouth and crunches down with satisfaction. She never gets to see these things.

She makes it through the first quarter before her phone buzzes, and Jackie gets back before Emily has placed her phone down on her desk.

"What is it?"

Before Emily can answer, Jackie realizes Van is halfway through calling her name. "—aaaaackie?"

With a whoosh, she's there in front of his desk. "Yes?"

"Aaahh!" he yelps. "Could you _not_ do that? Or could you always do it?" He runs a hand over his hair and adjusts his suit jacket. "Just pick a speed, geez."

For him? Not flippin' likely, but she tells him, unruffled, "Yes, sir. What did you need?"

"I, uh, heard there were donuts?" He pretends not to see her roll her eyes. "Could you get me one. With sprinkles?"

"I live to serve." She turns in slow motion and walks at half-speed toward the break room. More like one billionth of her top speed, but who's calculating?

Suddenly Emily is in front of her again—did she get powers, too? In her outstretched hands she has a sprinkled donut on a napkin. 

"How did you—?"

"I may not have superspeed, but I think to think I'm super _help_ f—"

The donut is on Van's desk and Jackie is back in the bleachers before the whistle for second quarter finishes blowing. No more texts arrive for the rest of the afternoon, which means she and Ruby can go get some celebratory ice cream after the game.

Emily comes to work the next morning to find her favorite latte on her desk, steaming hot. After all, if Emily's willing to play Jimmy Olsen to Jackie's Superman, she's not going to ruin a good thing.

* * *

"Oo, everything looks so good!" Emily enthuses as she looks at the lunch menu. She makes a little gasp. "They have garlic asparagus! I love asparagus."

"Remind me to use the bathroom in another building the rest of the day," Jackie says. Emily nods distractedly, as she keeps finding more things to gasp and hum about while turning each page. Jackie would have just eaten her packed lunch but the walls were really closing in on her today. She was thinking, maybe, a quick jaunt to Paris for a leisurely lunch at a sidewalk cafe—but then Emily saw her putting her purse over her shoulder and asked if she was heading to lunch, there was this great little bistro on Fifth that she was dying to try...

Jackie _really_ didn't want any company, but after all the help with Ruby, and those big, brown eyes of hers, she couldn’t say no. 

So here they are. At least they got out before The Attempters noticed and joined them in the elevator. Now Wendy is in on the experiments, too. She keeps asking Jackie questions about what she usually eats, what brand of clothing she's wearing today, does she usually take the subway or the bus? Jackie's pretty sure Wendy's installed some kind of tracker on her phone and desk computer, too. It's just... exhausting. Sometimes she thinks she'll just tell them how it happened to stop the constant buzzing of their attention.

Jackie sighs and tries to put them out of her mind. She lifts her hand to get the attention of their waitress. There's no response, other than her eyes flickering toward them for a moment. She's walking purposefully toward the kitchen, ignoring others who are trying to get her attention in her wake. What's her problem?

Jackie looks around—maybe one of the other servers can... 

There's no one else.

Now it all makes sense. The poor girl is covering these tables all by herself, with a room full of hungry office drones here on their too-short lunch break. And there's a growing crowd in the waiting area, too. Jackie knows what it's like. No matter how organized the girl is, she's going to have to handle the whole place alone. What was the manager thinking? If they're anything like Van, nothing at all.

Might as well make it easier on the girl. "You know what?" she says to Emily. "I think I'd rather just get a hot dog at that cart across the street from Wayne Security." Emily frowns and starts to protest, but Jackie continues, "He already knows how I like them—"

"What can I get for you ladies?" the waitress cuts in. Too late—the girl is standing there, looking helpful and only a little harried. Jackie notes her name tag. Lily.

Emily closes her menu. "Actually, I think we were just—"

"I'll have the mixed grill, fried mushrooms, a chicken Caesar salad and some sliders." Maybe she can make it up to Lily with a big tip.

Emily's eyes widen at the sheer amount of food, but she doesn't say anything. "And I'll have the grilled salmon."

Lily writes it all down, her smile only a little strained, and heads for the kitchen. Jackie's impressed. What a professional. 

"I thought you wanted to leave?" Emily asks. "What changed your mind?"

Jackie shrugs. "The waitress showed up, why not?"

Emily accepts her explanation easily. That's one thing she can count on. Emily always wants to believe the best of intentions, so she won't push. She might actually stop by the Weird Tony the hot dog guy's cart anyway before they go back to the office, and swipe a couple for an extra snack. She can just imagine what Wendy would have asked. Like, "Are the chemicals in hot dogs necessary to keep your superspeed fueled?"

It's not the chemicals, it's just that Jackie has to eat a lot more that she used to if she doesn't want to be starving all the time. Superspeed kicks her metabolism into hyperdrive. It's a pain. On that note, Jackie fishes in her purse for a protein bar. They're likely to have a long wait for the food.

"Do you have to snack a lot?" Emily asks. "I mean, your order was—"

"—big enough for three people? Thanks for pointing it out."

Emily blushes. "No, I mean, I bet your calorie intake has to be a lot higher these days. Because of the, you know..." She makes a running motion with her fingers.

"Yeah, actually, you're right." Jackie tilts her head consideringly. "Good catch. Not even the Imbecile Squad has figured that one out yet."

Emily begins to blush harder, a pleased smile coming over her features—when time seems to slow. Out of the corner of her eye, Jackie notices that Lily is balancing a major stack of dishes for a table on the other side of the room. And now it is starting to topple, on a crash course with one of the diners. Wow, that is going to be a mess if someone doesn't do something.

Jackie's shoulders slump. She is going to have to be the somebody, isn't she? 

Resigned, she zips over and adjusts Lily's plates in a much less precarious way, even taking off one of the dishes and putting it on a cart. While she's at it, a few other people need a top up of their water, and another couple of tables need bussing...

She returns to her own table and time goes back to normal. Emily's shy smile grows to its adorable height. "I care about you, Jackie, of course I'd notice."

Adorable. Did she just think 'adorable'? Emily is definitely cute, if you’re into that sort of thing. Jackie tends to prefer more solid, sturdy types. Someone she can look in the eye, rather than down on. But somehow Emily is still worming her way into heart. "Thanks," she says, hating that she's blushing a little, too.

"And I saw what you did there, missy." Emily points over at where Lily is setting down the last of her pile of plates with a smile. "That was going to be a big mess and you fixed it." Emily lays her hand on top of Jackie's. "You're a hero."

Emily’s hand is warm and soft. She pulls hers away before she can think about it too much. "I don't know what you're talking about."

But they stay at the bistro longer than necessary, just until a coworker arrives to rescue Lily. And Jackie pays the check, mostly to make sure Emily doesn't see the size of the tip.

* * *

For the next several weeks, Jackie makes a point not to use her superspeed. Not for any reason. Even when it would really be more convenient. Even when she could play some choice pranks on Van while he's grooming in his personal bathroom. She doesn't want to give the Doofus League any fodder for their experiments, which haven't decreased in number, to her dismay. Or give Emily any reason to call her a... She shudders thinking about it. _Hero_. She doesn't like the way it made her feel. At all.

Of course, that's the first thing Emily says when she gets to work that morning. "Hey, Hero, how's it hanging?" She shakes out her umbrella. It's stormy out today.

"Ugh, I told you to stop using the 'H' word. I," she holds out the first letter for emphasis, "hhhhhhhate it. Hmm. Hate. That's an 'H' word I can get on board with."

Emily just chuckles and nudges Jackie's shoulder with hers. "Oh, stop it. I know you love it. What is it that Shakespeare said? 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks'?" 

Just then there's a crash of thunder, much louder than usual. They both turn toward the sound and see that the door to the balcony has been flung open. During the next second, slowed for Jackie, she notes several things. The dimwits have rigged up some sort of metal contraption with what looks like a... lightning rod? Oh no. They've figured out that lightning is involved. Below is Ron and Teddy's special blend of green chemicals, in the bucket where she'd gotten her foot stuck that fateful night. The three of them are off a safe distance, in lab coats, rubber gloves and goggles, tablets at the ready to record whatever happens—when the zigzagging bolt of lightning that is approaching hits the contraption dead center.

Time snaps back to normal as the bolt hits, sending mini bolts up and down the length of the contraption. The chemicals in the bucket bubble and glow. Teddy, Ron, and Wendy cheer and type furiously, swapping technobabble in excited voices.

It's like catnip to Emily. She calls out, "Hey, what are you guys doing?" then jogs the rest of the way. Jackie follows at a slower pace, dread pulling at every step.

"I think we found the secret ingredient!" Ron says. "Natural lightning!" He looks toward Jackie for confirmation, but she rolls her eyes. He's not getting anything.

That doesn't stop Teddy, who chimes in, "Yeah, we were using electricity, even matching the voltage, but the flow of current wasn't exact under artificial conditions."

"And now all we have to do is test it on a living subject!" Wendy says, bouncing happily. 

Emily, who has been following with excitement and interest until now, frowns. "You're not going to use this thing on an animal, are you? You can't do that, it's cruel!"

"Not an animal," Ron assures her.

"Me!" Wendy cries, bouncing some more, the pugs embroidered onto her sweater seeming to jiggle with glee. She removes the goggles, gloves and coat, and lets Teddy strap the contraption to her body. Then she steps into a bucket of green goo with both feet. Thunder rumbles in the distance.

"You guys can't be serious," Jackie says, putting on her best sneer. "You're not only going to fail, you're going to kill her, or worse."

"Worse?" Ron says. "You mean, you won't be the only person around the office with superpowers?"

"Yeah," Teddy adds. "We realized recently that the day you got your powers was stormy, just like this. We did a little research on the recorded lightning strikes and..."

"Voila." Wendy beams. "Just let those petting zoo flunkies try to stop me now!"

"No. No, you guys can't do this," Emily says. "It's dangerous enough in Charm City with all the supervillains roaming around. But to do this to yourself, on purpose!?"

Thunder crackles again, and Emily throws Jackie a pleading look. Sure, she can stop them. Without even breaking a sweat. But then the Pinhead Crew will know they were right, and they'll just try again when Emily and Jackie aren't around. Plus, Emily will never, ever stop calling her the 'H' word. Ever.

She just can't risk it. "If these idiots want to fry themselves one by one, who am I to stop it?" Plus, what are the chances another bolt of lightning will strike here twice in the same hour?

She shouldn't even have thought it. Because another clap of thunder rings out, close. 

A lot of things happen at once, but Jackie sees it in excruciating slow motion. The lightning crackles and forks out from the clouds, straight toward them. Emily growls and launches herself forward to tackle Wendy. Wendy ducks to the side, somehow managing to stay upright inside the bucket. Emily trips on the edge of a loose tile, slick with rain. She slips forward toward the edge. And then she's falling, just as the lightning hits Wendy dead on.

Whatever was keeping Jackie from acting breaks then. She dives over the edge of the balcony.

She knows she can catch Emily, she's seen news footage of the Flash doing the same thing, running so fast he's perpendicular to the side of the building. So she grabs Emily around the waist and then starts to run—down the wall, out to the street, and inside the doorway of their building. Time goes normal again, and Emily is gasping, in her arms. Everything had happened so fast that she wasn't even wet from the rain.

"Jackie?" she says, blinking her dewy eyes. Dewy? Ugh, get it together, Jackie. "Did you... save me?"

"What else am I supposed to do when my friends throw themselves off sides of buildings? Let them splat?"

Emily grinned. "My hero. Literally, this time." 

A little warm sensation starts in Jackie's chest, and it's not the platonic type. The way Emily is gazing at her, as if she is Venus and Jackie is the sun she revolves around... That's enough. She puts Emily down, a little less gently than necessary. "I gotta go see if those morons actually killed Wendy." Then she speeds back up the side of the building.

When she gets there, not only is Wendy alive, but she is floating three feet in the air, spinning and cackling with glee. "Look, Jackie, I can fly!" She raises a fist into the air like Superman and floats ten more feet up.

"How—?"

"We don't know!" Ron claps his hands with glee. "Maybe with different people, you get a different effect?" 

Teddy nods thoughtfully. "Perhaps something about the DNA, or different factors in the blood?"

"Only way to know for sure is to keep testing it."

"That stands to reason. I should go first."

"What? No! I'm the one who built the device! I should—"

The arguing fades into a roaring sound in her head. "Aw, hell no."

She speeds off, down to the street, which is blessedly empty of people due to the rain. Pushing herself to the limits of her ability, she circles the block. Once, twice, three times, twenty, a hundred—until a rip in the fabric of space-time opens and she jumps through. Images swim past, going backward in the timeline, she stops just a few minutes before the first lightning strike, and jumps back into real time.

Carefully avoiding her past self, she races to the vending machine in the hallway and buys a Green Fury Dew. It's just a quick flash past when Ron isn't looking to dump the soda into his special chemical cocktail, and then break the lightning rod off for good measure.

Jackie hides in the stairwell until she feels the whole world jolt. Is the timeline changed? She peeks out to see Emily jogging to the balcony to see what's going on. And sees herself turn toward the stairwell and lock eyes with her. Past-Jackie shrugs, and blinks out of existence. Now-Jackie goes to the balcony just in time to catch Ron, Teddy and Wendy moan in disappointment. The lightning had only glanced off the device, and the bucket of chemicals sits there, unchanged.

"Well, better luck next time, right guys?" Emily says encouragingly.

Wendy gives the bucket a disconsolate kick. "Bye bye, Charm City Petting Zoo. It was nice knowing you."

Jackie turns back to her desk, smiling triumphantly. But as she watches Emily go back to her desk, she feels a niggle of something close to regret. 

She laughs it off. A trip to the bakery later, after the storm clears, will cure all. Maybe she'll see if Emily wants to come.

* * *

But she's wrong. No matter what she does, Jackie can't get the memory of the way Emily looked at her after being saved out of her mind. Those eyes blinking up at her, full of wonder and gratitude... They're haunting her. And it doesn't seem to make a difference if she spends less or more time with Emily. Jackie thought turning back time and erasing the event would have fixed it all, but she's stuck with the memory forever. She bets the Flash never has to deal with this crap.

She takes a sip of her coffee, from a little cafe in Peru. Usually taking secret trips around the world makes her happy, but this just tastes like sludge.

"Jackie! Jackie!" She jumps at the sound. It's Emily, eyes full of excitement. "Did you hear?"

Jackie sets down her sludge. "Ron and Teddy turned someone to stone?"

"No..." Her cute little eyebrows draw down as she frowns. Cute? Oh, whatever, she accepts that she thinks Emily's cute, and not just in a purely aesthetic way. Then Emily's confusion clears. "A representative from Ferris Air is coming to look at one of our new products, maybe to become a full-time client!"

"Oh, that _is_ big news." Ferris Air would be a major get, and it would keep the division solvent for quite a while. She wouldn't have to worry about this job, or losing her work family... or her Emily.

"Right? I can't wait to tell the guys."

Jackie trails after Emily as she heads into the lab. What they find is not what she expected. Ron is playing a game on his phone, Teddy is watching TV, his shoeless feet propped up on a table, and Wendy is reading a book. Snack food bags and empty cans litter the entire area. The rest of the department is absent.

"Where is everybody?" Emily asks.

"Don't know," says Teddy.

"Don't care," adds Wendy.

"Maybe they took the day off?" An explosion sounds from Ron's phone. "Yeah! Take that, you bastard!"

"No, no, no, no. This can't be happening." Emily wrings her hands, searching with her eyes around the room for the missing employees. "We're expecting Ferris Air today to look at the new anti-laser forcefield."

"Oh," says Teddy, eyes still on the screen.

"Cool," adds Wendy, turning a page.

"Damn it!" shouts Ron. "Sorry, I got hit in the game. What was that, now?"

"Ferris Air." Emily shakes her head. "What is wrong with you guys? This could be really big for Wayne Security!"

Ron sighs and puts down his phone. "We just finally accepted that we're failures and we should stop trying to rise out of our mediocrity."

"What's the point of fighting the natural order?" Wendy asks, tossing her book down.

"And who's the father?" Teddy says, eyes glued to the TV screen. "Wait, sorry. This show is _very_ engrossing." He pauses and turns toward them. "Anyway, we've accepted it was a freak accident, and there's no way to replicate it again."

A wave of relief washes over Jackie. They've stopped trying to give themselves superpowers? Finally! She'd wondered why things seemed quieter around the office, but she hadn't explored it, distracted as she was by Emily and the way she was starting to feel.

"The anti-laser forcefield? You guys told me last week it was ready to test." Emily starts to pace back and forth. "Oh no, oh no, what are we going to show them?"

"The forcefield?" Ron says. "Yeah, that's done. We've got it locked in the vault ready to go."

Emily lets out a breath. "Then what were you talking about?"

"Just this side-project, which would have been _revolutionary_ " —Ron gives Jackie a pointed glance— "for the company, but alas, it was not to be."

Emily claps her hands together and rubs them. "All right! We have about..." She glances at the clock. "...two hours before they arrive. Let's get it out of the vault and set up."

Ron pushes himself out of his chair as if it takes great effort. "Fine." He taps in the code with a few beeps, waits for the lock to click open... Nothing. He frowns and tries again. Still nothing. "Hey, Teddy did you change the code?"

"Uh, not that I remember." He pads over in his socks to the vault door and tries a combination. "Huh," he says when it doesn't open for him either.

"Can you hack this, Wendy?" Ron asks. "It's not working for either of us."

"I can give it a go." She stands, wiping greasy hands down her sweater, and tries several combinations. On the tenth try, there's a red buzz and a female voice intones, "System lockdown. Please retry in one hour."

Everyone groans. "I thought you could hack this, Wendy!"

"I tried, didn't I? Plus, I'd need more advanced equipment and it's all in there." She points at the vault.

Emily drops into a chair, covering her face with her hands. "Are all our new inventions in there?"

Teddy, Ron and Wendy look at each other guiltily. "Yeah," Ron says. "We're supposed to keep it locked up when we're not actively working on it to protect against corporate espionage."

"It's company policy..." Teddy says.

Emily is still covering her face with her hands. "That I wrote, I know."

It's physically painful for Jackie to watch Emily when she's down like this. It didn't use to be. It used to be a lot easier, amusing even. "Maybe you can stall them," Jackie suggests. "Take them out to lunch first or something?"

"Yeah, yeah." Emily nods her head robotically up and down a few times. "Maybe I can. That will give you guys time to figure out what the combination is." Jackie watches her pull herself together by taking a deep breath, squaring her shoulders and bouncing to her feet. "Let me see if I can get a reservation at Muryoku." She walks out with a determined gait.

Jackie turns on the others. "All right, Twit Titans, how did this happen?"

"Well, we did get a little drunk last night..." Wendy admits. 

"The last few nights, actually," Teddy says. "It was just so depressing to think about how we were _this_ close to a breakthrough that could change the world."

"And our pocketbooks, don't forget that," Ron says, and the other two nod sadly.

Jackie sees what happened. "So sometime in the last few days, you three got blackout drunk and changed the combination to something no one can remember. Am I getting this right?"

They hang their heads.

"Well, as I see it," she tells them using her scariest mom voice, "you've got less than an hour to figure out which combination the drunk versions of yourselves might have thought was _totally_ hilarious."

They stand there looking guilty.

"Move!"

This time they nearly fall over themselves, Keystone cops style, to obey.

An hour later, after furiously writing down a whole sheet full of possibilities, they've circled the ten most likely. If they can get this door open now, then Emily can finish that lunch, and come back to a fantastic demonstration, one that will surely impress the Ferris Air people. If not...

They put in the first number, the second, the third, fourth, fifth... All three of them are completely drenched with sweat, and she's feeling the same. Ron pauses before the tenth attempt. "This has got to be the right one." Slowly, he enters 80085. 

"System lockdown. Please wait three hours to try again."

They all groan, including Jackie this time. "I was sure it had to be that one," Teddy says. "I get really juvenile when I've had a few."

"Not juvenile enough, I guess," Wendy says. "Cause it wasn't 69 or 420 either."

"Great. And now there's no way we'll have it ready by the time Ferris Air gets here. Just..." She can feel her temper rising, and she has to clench her fists to keep from screaming. "Get out of my sight. I'll break it to Emily. Maybe she won't fire you outright that way."

They slink away so fast that she doesn't even hear the door close behind them. She looks at the locked vault with frustration. Why couldn't she have superstrength instead of superspeed? Then she'd be able to just _rip_ the doors off. Maybe she can turn back time again, just for a couple of days, so that she can stop the Blockhead Bunch from changing the combination, or at least see what they changed it to. But that is probably a bad idea. She'd done a little research after the last time, and discovered that playing with the timeline could have pretty devastating effects. She'd been pretty lucky that nothing truly bad had happened.

Although, this catastrophe would surely not have happened if she'd let those dolts give themselves superpowers... No. This is the lesser of two evils. She has to believe that.

So they're stuck. They'll lose a lucrative contract, and there's nothing she can do. She feels helpless, far from that "hero" that Emily believes she is.

If only superspeed were good for something other than getting a coffee from Peru and occasionally turning back time...

Suddenly she has a thought—a fuzzy memory from a few months ago. Didn't the Flash save all those people who were trapped in that mine? How did he do that? She speeds to her computer and does a search. At normal speed. No matter how fast she types, the company internet and these outdated computers can't keep up. And there it is, on video. While the cameras watched, the Flash had turned... blurry... and phased himself through solid rock to pull out the miners, one or two at a time.

Is that something she can do?

She looks at her hand, really concentrates on it, trying to move it back and forth so fast that her fingers are just a flesh-colored blur. It works. "Wow." It's not often that she's impressed with herself. She moves the hand downward, toward the keyboard and sees it pass through the desk, and down below, then brings it back up again. And the keyboard and desk are no worse for wear. This could be... very useful.

But she puts all thought of possible supervillainy out of her head—Emily would not approve. And she finds that really matters to her now.

She enters the lab carefully, making sure no one is around. She told the fools to scoot, but they are notoriously bad at following directions, or even at doing the logical thing at the cost of their own safety. Speaking of, she hopes there aren't any internal safeguards to protect against just this sort of thing. She supposes she can phase back out if there are death lasers or something on the other side. LexCorp probably has them, especially now after the interdimensional gate incident.

She takes a final look around. When everything seems safe, she places her hand on the vault door, and starts to blur—first the hand, which slides through, then her arm, torso, head and legs. Then she's inside, shaking with nervousness and breathing shallowly. That was... weird.

She waits for a long moment, just in case there are any booby traps. When nothing happens, she shrugs. Wayne Security _is_ pretty small potatoes compared to LexCorp. She checks her pocket to see if her phone made it through. Yes. So anything she's carrying should also make it safely in and out. She turns on the flashlight on her phone and shines it around the vault. She's not sure what the device looks like—she never pays any attention to product development since over half of their experiments never make it to market. So she reads the labels on the side. FreezBGone... Black Thumb... ThotRelees... ALF 3000... Wait. Could that stand for "anti-laser forcefield"?

It goddamn better.

It's not too large to carry. She tests if she can make the device blur along with her, and yes, it's blurry as her Gram Gram's vision when she's trying to do the Daily Planet Big Print Edition crossword. She steps through the door, hoping against hope that the numskulls are still gone...

Whew. No one in the room.

But on the other side of the office, she sees the elevator doors open and Emily walks out, all smiles as she leads the Ferris Air entourage. Crap. Crap crap crap. She's got maybe ten minutes while Emily introduces them to Van, and then it's showtime. Less if he starts to make an ass of himself and Emily moves them along to the lab to minimize the damage.

She'd better count on five.

She hits superspeed—first to set the device on a table, then to find the Dork Club. Of course, they aren't together. She finds Ron at the cafe on the first floor, Teddy chatting up a girl in HR, and Wendy is halfway across town in a bus for some reason. Jackie doesn't know where Wendy is going, but she doesn't care. The three stand in front of her blinking for a few seconds until they realize what must have happened. They start to draw breath to speak all at once, but Jackie holds up a hand. "Not now. You've got three minutes to set that up and prepare to knock Ferris Air's socks off." She points to where the group is listening to Van talk with expansive gestures.

"Maybe less than three minutes," says Ron and they leap into action.

The ALF 3000 is the right device (thank god), and no one asks how she got it out of the vault. They probably figured it out, which means the next time something similar happens she's going to be on the hook to help. Ergh, how she despises having these powers.

But then Emily walks in with their potential customers, smile widening when she sees that all is ready to go, and she turns everything over to Ron with an air of pride. Pride in her friends, in her company, in the world. Because her heart is big enough to hold the whole world in it.

Welp. Jackie's screwed. 

Teddy slides over and murmurs, "I saw what you did there."

"Yeah, and?"

"I thought you weren't using your powers."

She presses her mouth into a thin line. It's not worthy of a response. She keeps her eyes on Emily.

"Oh, _now_ I remember. You said you might use them _occasionally_." He pauses for a moment, then adds, "She's a lucky girl."

"Shut up and go away. Or it'll be worse than everyone seeing you in your Underoos."

She doesn't have to see the smirk on his face as he walks away to know it's there.

* * *

Now that she knows she's in love with Emily, she has to decide what to do with it.

The answer is simple. Nothing.

She fell in love once, married, had a kid. It ended badly, with nothing to show for it but her amazing Ruby. Does she really want to put herself through all that again? And she has to think about what's best for Ruby, too. It's a no brainer. She and Emily are perfectly fine as friends, and that's the way it will stay.

But she finds herself taking long walks on her breaks, sometimes long runs, just to clear her mind. Because if she stays in the office, she'll spend the whole time being hyper-aware of where Emily is, what Emily is doing, and what Teddy is thinking as he watches the two of them. Jackie is sure it's become his new soap opera of choice, and he's gotten Ron and Wendy hooked as well.

"Did you hear about that new seafood place?" she overhears Teddy telling Emily. Uh oh. Where is this going?

"Oh yeah, it's _so_ good," Ron says. "And I usually don't go for seafood. Got sick of it growing up."

"And there's that cousin of yours that married a sentient porpoise, right?" Wendy puts in.

"True, true," Ron says. "Anyway, I hear Jackie _loves_ seafood. You should see if she's busy—"

But whatever he says next is lost because she's already back home, making a sandwich or six in her kitchen. Jackie does love seafood. But she can make her own lunch plans, thank you very much.

And eating lunch alone is something she does all the time, anyway. No big deal. It's not like she enjoys how everyone goggles at the sheer amount of food she eats. At home, she can eat as fast as she wants, too. Ruby thinks it's hilarious how an entire table full of food can disappear in seconds.

Of course, Emily would probably smile, too. And make some cute comment about—

Ugh.

With a sigh, she whooshes back to work. Emily's gone for lunch by the time she gets there. She wonders if Emily went to that seafood place after all. Then she puts it out of her mind.

Suddenly Wendy rolls over in a desk chair. "Sooo... when ya gonna tell her?" 

Jackie never saw her coming—this distraction is worse than she thought. "Tell who what?" she says, opening up an email.

Wendy rolls closer, too close, and nudges her arm. "Aw, come on, you know what I mean. You two would be so cute together."

Jackie turns the full force of her icy stare on Wendy. "You _really_ don't want to push me. You know what I'm capable of."

Wendy just gives her a smug smile. "You're all talk. You act all tough, but really you're just a big ol' softie."

Jackie's voice drops dangerously. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah." Wendy swivels slowly, lazily. "I think you're just chicken. Bawk, ba—"

A half-second later Wendy is finishing that bawk-bawk-ing on the roof, her chair still mid-swivel. Let her enjoy figuring out how to get down with all the roof access doors locked. 

There's a peal of thunder, then, and Jackie smiles grimly. Wendy'd better think fast if she doesn't want to get soaked, or worse.

"Oh, wow," she hears after the elevator doors open with a ding. Emily's back. "Those storm clouds are coming in fast."

All of Jackie's grim satisfaction dissipates. Emily would be appalled that she left Wendy up there in a storm. No matter how much she deserved it.

So Wendy is back at her cubicle, wet but not fully soaked, a few minutes later. "Ssssooooofffttieeee!" Wendy whisper-calls after Jackie's retreating back.

Jackie heads straight to Emily's desk. "I'm not feeling well. Can you cover for me?"

She's instantly out of her chair to hover at Jackie's side. "Oh, no! What is it?"

"Just... fatigue. I'm completely exhausted, and I can't focus." It's all true. She's tired of the Bonehead Gang poking into her love life, and her focus is shot because of Emily no matter what. Having her nearby right now is taking all her self-control not to gather her in her arms and kiss her silly. Maybe after zipping them to the Bahamas first or something. The warm sun shining down, the gentle waves lapping on the beach and the sand between their toes...

Emily's hand on her arm brings her out of her reverie. "Jackie? Jackie, do you need to sit? Do you need help making it home?"

Jackie groans aloud. This is so frustrating!

Emily takes it for a groan of pain. "Oh, I can't let you go home by yourself! What if you run into something at warp speed because your powers go haywire?"

She wants to tell Emily that they don't work that way, that she's discovered she has accelerated healing along with the superspeed, but she also doesn't want to because Emily's hand on her back feels so warm and... right. So she only hates herself a little when she says, "Oh... o-okay," and lets Emily lead her out of the office.

She feels her phone buzz in her pocket, but she doesn't check it. It's not the special ringtone she has for Ruby, it's not Emily, and that's all that matters. By the time they get to the street, the rain is coming down in earnest. Emily unfurls an umbrella and holds it over Jackie's head while they wait for the Uber, up on tiptoes to hold it high enough to cover Jackie completely. Thunder rings out again, and they both jump at how loud it is. "That must be _really_ close!" Emily says, wrapping an arm around Jackie. "I hope the driver gets here quick. This could get dangerous!"

As if to agree with her, thunder and lightning hit almost simultaneously, lighting up a lamppost just across the street. Emily jumps in fright—and because of the slick sidewalk and her too-high heels—she slips backward, umbrella tumbling out of her hand. The world goes slow motion, as it always seems to when there's someone to save, and Jackie wraps her arms around Emily, halting her fall. She watches in slow motion as Emily's face changes from surprise to worry to realization to wonder. Then with a _snap_ , time is back to normal. 

Jackie holds her there, dipped as if in a dance, which makes Jackie let out a short laugh at the ridiculousness of all this. But Emily just smiles. "My hero," she says, just like the time that was erased.

But Jackie finds it doesn't bother her like it did before. In fact, some part of her has been waiting to hear it again. 

She bends down to kiss Emily at normal speed. Slow enough that Emily can react if it's not what she wants. Emily's eyes widen, but then drift shut as their lips meet. Jackie feels almost an electric jolt at the contact—it's not that different from when her speed kicks in. She doesn't know if Emily feels it or not, but she responds enthusiastically all the same. It's a rush of feeling she hasn't experienced in years, overwhelming and just... perfect. She doesn't even mind the rain slowly soaking her to the bone. Why did she fight this for so long?

At some point Jackie hears the sound of applause and whooping from just over her shoulder, and though she tries to ignore it, she recognizes the voices. She breaks the kiss, lifts Emily back to her feet and turns. "You better not—"

Too late. Wendy is holding up her phone, recording the whole thing while standing under an awning. "I knew you could do it!" she calls encouragingly. "You'll thank me later!" Teddy and Ron are clapping and hollering things like, "Whoo!" and "You get it, girl!" on either side.

Emily stands there, pushing her wet hair off her face and blushing prettily. She looks up at Jackie, happiness dancing in her eyes. "What do they mean by—?"

What the hell. Jackie pulls her into another kiss. Even the sound of another crash of thunder doesn't make them stop. Instead, it's a thought. She ends the kiss and murmurs, "Do you want to go somewhere more private?"

Emily nods. "And dry?" she adds hopefully.

"Absolutely." Jackie kisses her again, a gentle promise. "And then later, there's this green chemical formula Ron's been working on that I've got to show you."

"Huh?"

Jackie just smiles and speeds them back to her apartment. There'll be plenty of time to explain it later.


End file.
